Traditionally, grain and other crop materials are loaded into railcars to be transported by railroad using what is generally referred to as a grain elevator. A grain elevator is a building that is typically located adjacent to a rail line where farmers can haul their grain or other crop materials to be collected and stored. The grain elevator will act as a storage facility for the grain; storing it in one of a number of large silos or other storage facilities in the grain elevator along with grain from other farmers. A railway siding will run adjacent to a stationary dispensing assembly where periodically a number of railcars will be directed to the railway siding and loaded with grain from the grain elevator using the dispensing assembly. The loaded railcars will then be ready for transport on the rail lines.
However, grain elevators need to be constructed at a specific location along a rail line and are permanent, stationary buildings. As a result, a limited number of grain elevators have been constructed in the past (usually placed in towns near the rail way lines) and farmers have to transport their grain or other crop material to the nearest grain elevator. This often results in the farmer having to travel long distances to haul their grain to a grain elevator where it will be stored until it is eventually loaded on a railcar.
At one time, grain elevators were relatively small (at least compared to modern grain elevators) and it was common in many places to have grain elevators on branch lines, rather than just the main lines. However, more recently grain companies have tended to create ever larger capacity grain elevators, typically forming them of concrete and making them larger and larger and capable of storing more and more grain. This however has resulted in the grain companies building fewer and fewer of these large capacity grain elevators with these high capacity concrete grain elevators being constructed only on main lines, leaving branch lines that used to have smaller wooden grain elevators either with old, unused or abandoned grain elevators or no grain elevators after they have been demolished. This has left a lot of farmers having to transport their grain even longer distances to reach one of these remaining high capacity grain elevators and many grain elevator sidings that used to contain smaller grain elevators unused.